It is a pattern, yes. Let me show you a pattern that I have observed in Hacker News and forums since the demise of USENET.
USENET had an elegant way of ignoring without hellbanning, which the negative karma has done to me now.
Would you please study the history of Stalinism ?
Let me summarise it for you.
Ideology -- pg.
Yeah, Marx is a good guy too.
It is made of dictators and the inner ring -- Admins and Karma users like you. These people have special "powers" of punishment.
Admins have far greater powers of purging and renaming things.
Then the party cadre -- people who submit and actually keep the things in motion. They are usually not aware of the "inner ring", users like you. They want to help the lay people.
In fact no one even knows who is in the inner ring.
The inner ring is clueless of the Admins.
Then there are lay users like me, who lurk around and want to help but are generally punished.
If you think I am shitting you consider the rate of new users becoming high karma users in HN over the years.
You can use d3 and it will go the top of HN.
Your pedantry is just arbitrary. There is nothing really substantial in it. Rather than judging on the basis of content, you are judging me on the "words" I use.
Gimmick:
An ingenious or novel device, scheme, or stratagem, especially one designed to attract attention or increase appeal.
Why thank you, it is novel :)
Please understand the democratic roots of the word "forum" and take it seriously.